Microscopic tardigrades have fascinated scientists for their incredible toughness since they were first discovered back in 1773. They can sense when it’s time to go dormant and enter a tun state under harsh conditions. Tardigrades can even withstand dangerous levels of radiation, and a surprising mechanism in the DNA may be why. The process to repair DNA goes into overtime when exposed to the deadly radiation to fix the damaged DNA. The findings are described in a study published April 12 in the journal Current Biology.
“What we saw surprised us,” study co-author and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill biologist Bob Goldstein said in a statement. “The tardigrades are doing something we hadn’t expected.”